The first thirty-three verses of Daniel 4 illustrate that God resists the proud, but these last four verses demonstrate that He also gives grace to the humble.
Do you like getting humiliated? Chuck Colson tells how he climbed the ladder of power and prestige to become the Special Counsel to the President of the United States of America. He was filled with pride as he walked in and out of the office of the most powerful man in the world any time he wanted. That most powerful man was seeking advice from him, and Colson’s heart swelled with pride.
That was when he became involved in the Watergate affair of the Nixon administration. John Dean blew the whistle in 1973, and Colson soon found himself a convicted criminal doing time in a federal penitentiary. He was so humiliated that he lifted up his eyes to the King of Heaven and gave his heart to Jesus Christ. (He was, in fact, reading Lewis’ Mere Christianity and his chapter on pride). He still admits that the worst, most humiliating experience in his life was the best thing that ever happened to him.
In Luke 18:14 Jesus says, “Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
Nebuchadnezzar’s pride was stripped away along with all his achievements, until he came to recognize that whatever he possessed or achieved before was a gracious gift from God, who is able to exalt the lowliest of men to heights of power or bring down the mightiest of men to depths of humiliation.
Nebuchadnezzar once again picks up the storyline and speaks in the first person (cf. Dan. 4:1-3). While a narrator recounted the details of his fall, Nebuchadnezzar wanted everyone to hear his repentance from his own mouth.
34 At the end of the days I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven, and my reason returned to me, [and what did Nebuchadnezzar do, he…] and I blessed the Most High, and praised and honored him who lives forever,
Before, “I built all this…” Now, “I bow before the real King.” We can summarize these verses:
He looked up—lifted his eyes to heaven.
He woke up—sanity restored.
He spoke up—praised the Most High.
Just as suddenly as judgment had fallen upon him, it was lifted. Mission accomplished. His chains fell off. He looked up and saw the heavens above. “He has the use of his reason so far restored to him that with it he glorifies God, and humbles himself. Men never rightly use their reason till they begin to be religious, nor live as men till they live to the glory of God” (Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, p. 1090). His sanity was restored, and his soul burst into song.
for his dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom endures from generation to generation; 35 all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, “What have you done?”
God’s rule never ends, unlike any man’s, even Nebuchadnezzar’s. He realizes that now. Also, he sees that “he does according to his will…and one can stay his hand” or ask “What have you done?” God is accountable to no one. He is the true sovereign.
None can stay his hand. It’s not even a good fight with him. There’s no fight. He is God. He does as he pleases. He is sovereign. God of gods. Able to rescue as he chooses. And his power and reign will not expire. His kingdom is everlasting. None can hold him back. None can stay his hand.
This once-pagan king now openly declares the praises of God. He has truly gotten the message. God can do anything he wants to do, and no one can stand against him. Earthly kings rule by God’s permission and they stay on the throne only so long as it pleases God to give them power and authority. Nebuchadnezzar has learned the truth the hard way. Now he proclaims it for all the world to hear: God has the right to do everything he wants and everything he wants is right to do.
Before, Nebuchadnezzar would have pointed back to some military victory or building exploit as he greatest moment, but from here forward he will always look back to this moment when God humbled him and he came to the full realization that God is God and not me. That God can do what He wants because He is God.
Notice that Nebuchadnezzar’s reason returned to him when he took his eyes off of himself and off of his accomplishments that he had done, and turned his eyes “to heaven,” to God, “the Most High.” Lifting one’s eyes to heaven suggests both faith and submission. “To you I lift up my eyes, O you who are enthroned in the heavens!” (Psalm 123:1) “Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other” (Isa. 45:22).
This is what God was looking for in Nebuchadnezzar—repentance. Now he would look to the true God in heaven and bow before Him instead of expecting everyone to bow before him as king of Babylon or his golden image.
By a miracle of grace his mind was suddenly healed and his reason returned. He knew what had happened to him and remembered Daniel’s warning and prediction. Overwhelmed by this demonstration of Yahweh’s limitless power, Nebuchadnezzar prostrated himself before the Ruler of heaven and earth.
This was an act of acknowledgement and an act of dependence and supplication, as well as worship. It is likely that as his eyes were opened to perceive God Most High in heaven, that his reason was returned and his mouth was opened to acknowledge and worship the true God.
True humility is not looking on ourselves and believing ourselves as worthless. It is to get our eyes off of ourselves entirely and to gaze upon the beauty and greatness of God Most High. True humility acknowledges that everything I have, everything I’ve accomplished and all that I am is because of what God has graciously done for me.
Seven years before, the king had considered himself a great man and his kingdom a great kingdom, but now he has a different viewpoint, “all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing,” and Nebuchadnezzar includes himself now, in that number.
Perhaps Daniel had previously quoted the prophet Isaiah to the king: “Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are accounted as the dust on the scales” (Isa. 40:15), “It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers (Isa. 40:22) and then “who brings princes to nothing, and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness” (Isa. 40:23).
Even this terrible experience could be considered as God’s hand of gracious discipline upon Nebuchadnezzar, while yet an unbeliever! Notice that a time limit was set upon it. It wouldn’t be forever and by the end of it it was expected that the lesson would have been learned. Also, there was a definite purpose in the ordeal, and that is that Nebuchadnezzar would learn “that the Most High rules in the kingdom of men, [and] gives it to whomever He will.”
The sovereignty of God over the affairs of human beings is one of the great lessons we learn from this chapter. Five times in our text that message is plainly declared:
- “the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will and sets over it the lowliest of men” (Dan. 4:17).
- “the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will” (Dan. 4:25).
- “your kingdom shall be confirmed for you from the time that you know that Heaven rules” (Dan. 4:26).
- “until you know that the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will” (Dan. 4:32)
- “I blessed the Most High, and praised and honored him who lives forever, for his dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom endures from generation to generation” (Dan. 4:34).
This last verse is Nebuchdnezzar’s own recognition of that truth.
We are all called to bow before the sovereignty of God, but the heart of sinful man will always chafe and rebel at the very idea of a sovereign God, for the human heart wants to be “free” of all outside control and determine our own way. Few sinners realize that they are not actually “free” but are in bondage to their fallen, fleshly nature and the forces of Satan (2 Timothy 2:26). Charles Spurgeon was very balanced in his theology, writing:
“Most men quarrel with this [the sovereignty of God]. But mark, the thing that you complain of in God is the very thing that you love in yourself. Every man likes to feel that he has a right to do with his own as he pleases. Oh, for a spirit that bows always before the sovereignty of God” (Charles Spurgeon, The New Park Street Pulpit, vol. 4, p. 82)
The end result of it all is that Nebuchadnezzar’s humbling became an even greater occasion of exaltation because of his repentance.
36 At the same time my reason returned to me, and for the glory of my kingdom, my majesty and splendor returned to me. My counselors and my lords sought me, and I was established in my kingdom, and still more greatness was added to me. 37 Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the King of heaven, for all his works are right and his ways are just; and those who walk in pride he is able to humble.
I don’t think Nebuchadnezzar felt embarrassed about his seven years of insanity. If he had been, he wouldn’t have written the story down for the whole world to know. You can know that you have made a spiritual breakthrough when you can tell your own story without feeling a need either to embellish or to cover up the negative aspects. When all the glory goes to God for rescuing you from yourself and your own foolish choices.
God had truly taught Nebuchadnezzar by priceless experience that “all his works are right and his ways are just; and those who walk in pride he is able to humble.” It was a painful experience, but a valuable one. It was a lesson that every political leader must learn: God rules; we don’t. God rules; I don’t.
No truth is more fundamental than the one Nebuchadnezzar discovered: He’s God and We’re Not. This is where all true spiritual growth begins, bowing before the sovereignty of God. As Ray Pritchard says, “Here is some good news. If you are ready, you can rip that big G off your sweatshirt. Since you aren’t God, you can stop playing God.”
The fear of the Lord was beginning to be formed in Nebuchadnezzar’s heart and God could trust him with “more greatness.” The “head of gold” had bowed in humble submission to the God of Daniel (v. 37). Can God trust you with greater greatness, or will it go to your head and make you proud?
Pride was the sin of Lucifer, who was enthroned in heaven on high as the anointed cherub, the most gifted and glorious of all of the angelic hosts. Pride! It was the sin of Eve—to Iisten to the serpent, mishandling God’s Word, and succumbing to the dangled delusion—‘Ye shall be gods.’ It was the sin of Herod Agrippa I (Acts 12:20-23). It was the sin of sins. It still is. Let us beware!
At the end of the seven years not only was Nebuchadnezzar’s reason returned to him, but also the majesty and splendor of his kingdom. His cabinet sought him out and restored him to his throne, with even more glory than before!
John Phillips reminds us how amazing this is: “The madness of Nebuchadnezzar ordinarily would have unleashed a power struggle, and the king’s life would be terminated as a triumphant conspirator seized the throne. A mad emperor must have been an enormous liability to those who actually ran the everyday affairs of the empire.
Yet for seven years, the king was protected from the people who would have exploited his madness and would have seen in it sufficient cause to murder him and seize the reins of power for themselves. The fact that the king’s condition was not exploited points to the Holy Spirit who, as the great Restrainer, sovereignly restrained all such intrigues. God kept faith with the poor lunatic.
So the kingdom was returned to Nebuchadnezzar when his sanity was restored. This restoration awed the king and caused him to acknowledge the works, ways, and wonders of God” (John Phillips, Exploring Daniel, p. 82).
This is Nebuchadnezzar’s own personal confession of faith in Israel’s God, and it is the last word we hear from his lips in the Bible. This great and mighty persecutor of Israel, the destroyer of Jerusalem, has now been humbled by God’s grace and brought to confess His mercy. If a person like Nebuchadnezzar can be humble and restored, then surely no one is beyond the reach of God’s mercy!
How different from Pharoah’s response to what the Lord did in Egypt! Instead of bowing to God’s sovereignty and acknowledging His authority, Pharoah continued to rebel again and again against God’s will, saying, “But Pharaoh said, “Who is the LORD, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? I do not know the LORD, and moreover, I will not let Israel go” (Exodus 5:2). As a result of his rebellion, he and his country were destroyed.
Mankind doesn’t think pride is such a big deal. But pride idolizes self and God won’t share His glory with anyone. In Isaiah 13:11 Yahweh says, “I will punish the world for its evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; I will put an end to the pomp of the arrogant, and lay low the pompous pride of the ruthless.”
“Will we see King Nebuchadnezzar in heaven? That’s difficult to know. He certainly had a life-changing experience with the merciful God. But we can never know the true state of his heart. Did he recognize the Lord as the one true God, or did he just shift Him to the top of his Top Ten Deities list, bumping himself down to number two? There is coming a time when we’ll know for sure. I, for one, hope to meet him one day in eternity” (Amir Tsarfati, Discovering Daniel, p. 95).
Matthew Henry adds: “It was not long after this that Nebuchadnezzar ended his life and reign, Abydenus, quoted by Eusebius (Preap. Evang. 1.9) reports that upon his deathbed he foretold the taking of Babylon by Cyrus. Whether he continued to live in the same good mind that here he seems to have been in we are not told. If our charity may reach so far as to hope he did, we must admire free grace, by which he lost his wits for a while, that he might save his soul for ever” (Commentary on the Whole Bible, p. 1090).
If you are God’s child (through believing in Jesus Christ alone), God will not allow you to live in sin forever. God loves you far too much to allow you to go on in your sinful rebellion forever. Sooner or later He will intervene, sometimes in ways both public and painful, so that He can bring us back home again. Like the prodigal, you may have to wallow in the pig pen and despair of life, but hopefully it will stir your hunger for home, for God.
Before his humbling, Nebuchadnezzar was a proud pagan, but afterwards, he began to sound like a Puritan theologian, fully convinced of the sovereignty of God. Our God reigns.
Our God reigns. That is a monumental and paramount truth. It is a reality that changes everything. When you wake up in the morning, you do not wake up to a world that is void of purpose. No, our God reigns. When you go throughout your day, there are no accidental conversations or interactions. Why? Our God reigns. When you go to bed at night after a day full of turmoil in seeing sin paraded in the country on the news, in hearing sin praised in your workspace, in knowing the sin that you’ve committed yourself, you do not go to bed to bed without hope… no, again, our God reigns. (Henry Anderson)
Grace Still Amazes 